Airbnb Just Expanded Its App Significantly, Adding Local Experiences and Restaurant Reservations

Airbnb announced today that it is expanding its scope significantly, moving from a home-sharing business to a "holistic travel" company, said CEO Brian Chesky at the Airbnb Open event in Los Angeles. It rolled out a new feature called Trips as part of an app update designed to provide travelers with a one-stop shop. The feature focuses on three areas—experiences, places and homes—and the company plans to add flights and services in the future. Airbnb hosts can now offer unique experiences, allowing users to try different activities while traveling, like taking a lesson from a samurai sword artist, learning to make a dress or getting a makeover. "'Experiences' are our handcrafted experiences that allow you to immerse in the local community," Chesky said. "These are offered by local hosts, and we have two types: We have immersions, which are multi-day experiences, and we have single-day experiences, which are just a few hours." He added that Airbnb "designed this to be both magical and easy," and the goal is to connect travelers with locals they wouldn't normally meet. The result, he hopes, will be a truly immersive experience. The new feature kicks off today with 500 possible experiences for travelers to choose from in 12 cities around the world, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Detroit, Havana, London, Paris, Florence, Nairobi, Cape Town, Tokyo and Seoul. Hosts can now request to offer experiences, like learning about star gazing, to Airbnb's listings in these cities and future cities. To get users interested in these activities, the company took inspiration from the movies, explained Chesky. Each experience has its own poster and trailer. (See below for an example.) [jwplayer RRnXasCt-1kT9Z8rj] Another portion of the Trips feature, places, taps into recommendations from Airbnb hosts to give users an alternative to tourist traps, offering what the company pitches is an authentic experience of a city where they can see what it is like to "live there." Places allows travelers to use hosts' guidebooks (which the company launched earlier this year), participate in local meet ups and go on audio walks. Users will be able to take those audio tours in Los Angeles first; San Francisco, Paris, London, Tokyo and Seoul will be added in spring 2017. The company has also added another function to its app, the Trip Itinerary, which gives users the "ability to easily book and add experiences or things to do." The Trip Itinerary will evolve its capabilities "based on machine learning to dynamically suggest personalized and contextual (i.e. based on location) recommendations during a trip," according to the company's release. "Airbnb's vision is to ultimately cater for every aspect of a trip, making it both easy and magical from start to finish." "Even from when we started we've really always been about a trip," said Chesky. "And when we're at our best, this is who we are." The company has also partnered with Resy, a reservations company, to add restaurant reservations to the app. And it partnered with Make a Wish foundation to grant wishes through its experience function daily. Airbnb's in-house team, along with creative shop TBWA\Chiat\Day, created a new spot (see below) pitching experiences. CREDITS Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day Creative: Stephen Butler, Brent Anderson, Kyla Elliott, Ben Beazley, Liz Cartwright, Stephen Lum Brand Leadership: James Vincent, Kelly Lee, Andrie Wheeler, Matt Theisen, Kelli McDonald Planning: Neil Barrie, Jennifer Costello, Brooke Lonegan, Farid Mozafari Production: Brian O'Rourke, Anh-Thu Le, Max Belin, Scott Henry, Adrian Womack Business Affairs Linda Daubson, Maryam Ohebsion Traffic: Jarim Lynn Social Team Creative: Robbie Reynolds, Sasha Verma, Christian Prieto Brand Leadership: Jenn Wong, Anthony Perrin Planning: Kyle Luhr, Emilie Arrive, Laura Mayer Media Agency: Starcom Cristina Torres, Business Lead Erin Houg, SVP Jillian Mansheim, Global Associate Director Gerard Martin, Experience Design Director Christi Pizarek, Global Associate Director Batchimeg Ganbaatar, Supervisor Andy Develvis, Supervisor Darren Allison, Supervisor Hannah Nowicki, Associate Paid Social Media Agency: Amobee Chad Bronstein, SVP Global Partnerships, Amobee Amanda Chin, Director of Social, Amobee Stefan Sideris, Director of Global Social Media Operations, Amobee Kate Barry, VP Client Services, Amobee EMEA Stephanie Conlin, Sales and Client Services Director, Amobee SEA Client: Airbnb Chief Marketing Officer: Jonathan Mildenhall Global Brand Marketing Director: Alexandra Dimiziani Senior Global Marketing Director: Marion Link Marketing Specialist: Sophia Horowitz Managing Director, The Art Department: James Goode Global Head of Production: Rachel Holbrook Global Production Lead: Holly Butler Global Photography Lead: Bridget Harris Creative Producer, Photography: Rebecca Lanthorne Creative Director: Tony Hogqvist Creative Lead: Dillon Petrillo Assistant Creative Producer: Freddie Whitman Global Brand Strategy Lead: Nancy King Global Brand Strategy: Cameron Ferrin Global Head of Social: Eric Toda Global Social Media Manager: Jasmine Atherton Social Media Analyst: Chase Munson Connections and Media Activations Lead: Rachael Haley Connections and Media Activations Manager: Jordan Ng Connections and Media Activations Manager: Frank Cortese Production: Caviar Director: Arnaud Uttenhove Executive Producer: Michael Sagol Executive Producer: Kim Dellara Head of Production: Kelly Bowen Line Producer: Stephan Mohammed Prod Supervisor: Laura Peszynski Dir. Of Photography: Daniel Bouquet 1st AD : Kennedy Taylor Photographer: Farhad Samari Producer: Brienna Price Editorial: Exile / The Art Department Editor - The Art Department - Dillon Petrillo Editors: Will Butler :60 & Rex Lowry :10s and :15s Assistant Editors: Brandon Lawrence Producers: Jennifer Lock - HOP, Michael Miller - Producer EP: Carol Lynn Weaver Assistant Editor - The Art Department - Freddie Whitman Telecine/Film Transfer: MPC Color EP: Meghan Lang Color Producer Rebecca Boorsma Colorist: Mark Gethin VFX: Mark Holden VFX: Ben Davidson VFX Producer: Abisayo Adejare Music Company: Beta Petrol Music Supervision: Bryan Ray Turcotte EP: Dayna Turcotte Audio Mix: LIME Studios EP - Susie Boyajan Mixer - Mark Meyuhas Assistant Mixer - Stephen Fredericks Assistant Mixer - Peter Lapinski On-line Editorial: SAINT/MP Executive Producer - Helen Park Producer - Kristina Thoegersen Creative Director - Rob Trent Flame Artist - Miles Essmiller Flame Artist - Dave Stern

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Airbnb Just Expanded Its App Significantly, Adding Local Experiences and Restaurant Reservations

Becoming a 'holistic travel' service

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